A Quarterback Misevaluation Cost Kentucky More than a Million Dollars

We’ve all seen the video by now. Zach Calzada is flashing his hundred-dollar bills at Garrett in a flex that has turned into an embarrassing viral moment. The Kentucky football program is not unfamiliar with a situation like this, and that’s the problem.

Ahead of the 2024 season, Kentucky recruited Tennessee’s Gerald Mincey from the transfer portal to fill a large gap at right tackle. Despite a few red flags from his time in Knoxville, the Cats were willing to take a risk at a position in dire need of help. Mincey helped very little, playing in only seven games. During the season finale, he was spotted at a concession stand in the middle of a blowout loss to Louisville.

That embarrassment would only be amplified if we knew how much Kentucky paid to get Mincey to campus. Well, hold onto your butts.

Once the video surfaced, Chris Hummer did some digging and learned that Kentucky spent approximately $1.25 million in NIL/revenue-sharing money to sign Calzada this offseason. The story on Calzada is currently the first thing you see on the homepage at CBSSports.com.

In the transfer portal era, spending a million dollars on a quarterback is not unheard of. Duke paid Tulane’s Darian Mensah $8 million for two seasons at Duke. It cost Miami at least $4 million to have Carson Beck for one season. Those deals are eye-opening, but make sense. They were the best of the best on the market, and to play the game, you got to pay.

Even though Duke and Miami aren’t having the seasons they wished, Mensah leads the ACC in passing, and for a few weeks, Beck was the Heisman Trophy frontrunner. Kentucky has not gotten a similar return on investment.

Calzada only played 7.5 quarters of football for Kentucky this season. He completed 25-53 passes (47.2%) for 234 yards and an interception before suffering a shoulder injury against Ole Miss. In short, Kentucky paid Calzada $50,000 per completion.

There is a reason why Kentucky felt the need to bring in another quarterback ahead of the 2025 season, instead of simply rolling the dice with Cutter Boley. The freshman received a tryout of sorts with a start against Louisville. He completed 6-15 passes for 48 yards and two interceptions. Ahead of a do-or-die year for Mark Stoops, betting on Boley was too great a risk.

Kentucky needed some insurance at the quarterback position, but they also had to bring in essentially an entire new offensive line, rebuild the wide receivers room, and fortify the defensive trenches. That’s costly. Calzada felt like a decent insurance plan at quarterback. He was a vet with SEC experience who you didn’t need to pay a premium for. It turns out, they didn’t really get him “on the cheap.”

All of the money surrounding Calzada isn’t the biggest problem with Mark Stoops’ program. The backup plan turned out to be a better one.

The real issue is the one that is making Saturday’s game against Florida feel like a do-or-die moment for Mark Stoops: roster mismanagement and transfer portal evaluation.

Over the last three years, Kentucky has taken big swings in the portal. It worked out with Ray Davis, and to an extent with Devin Leary, but the misses added up to too many losses. Ahead of the 2025 season, Kentucky actually did the improbable by solving its offensive line problems in the portal. The defensive line has been exceptional. But what if they didn’t spend a million on a quarterback who isn’t playing? That money could have helped them add another wide receiver or defensive back.

Zach Calzada embarrassed the Kentucky football program on a national level and highlighted Mark Stoops’ greatest weakness as the Wildcats’ head coach.

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